Luke 2:1-20
1 Now in those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus, that a census be taken of all the inhabited earth. 2 This was the first census taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. 3 And all the people were on their way to register for the census, each to his own city. 4 Now Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the city of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and family of David, 5 in order to register along with Mary, who was betrothed to him, and was pregnant. 6 While they were there, the time came for her to give birth. 7 And she gave birth to her firstborn son; and she wrapped Him in cloths, and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.
8 In the same region there were some shepherds staying out in the fields and keeping watch over their flock at night. 9 And an angel of the Lord suddenly stood near them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them; and they were terribly frightened. 10 And so the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of great joy which will be for all the people; 11 for today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. 12 And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.” 13 And suddenly there appeared with the angel a multitude of the heavenly army of angels praising God and saying,
14 “Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace among people with whom He is pleased.”
15 When the angels had departed from them into heaven, the shepherds began saying to one another, “Let’s go straight to Bethlehem, then, and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us.” 16 And they came in a hurry and found their way to Mary and Joseph, and the baby as He lay in the manger. 17 When they had seen Him, they made known the statement which had been told them about this Child. 18 And all who heard it were amazed about the things which were told them by the shepherds. 19 But Mary treasured all these things, pondering them in her heart.20 And the shepherds went back, glorifying and praising God for all that they had heard and seen, just as had been told them.
This passage of Luke is the quintessential Christmas story, is it not? Just like Linus says, “That’s what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.” Even though today is the 3rd Sunday of Advent and we are still ‘counting down’ to Christmas Day, I wanted to look at this passage today, for it fits our word for this Sunday, which is joy. And as Linus remarked, this is what Christmas is all about.
At least, this is what Christmas should be all about. And because of that, it should be as the song goes, “the most wonderful time of the year.” But did you know that for a lot of people, they find it is the most depressing time of year? A long time ago, the senior pastor at the church I was on staff at announced to the congregation on Christmas Eve, “I hate Christmas!” He wasn’t trying to be ironic or funny, it wasn’t a segue into his message, he was just grouchy and dead serious. Needless to say, I didn’t stay long at that church. He, who should have known better, had completely missed what Christmas is all about.
Understandably though, Christmastime can be depressing for people. At Christmastime, for many people, the problems of life become amplified. It can be a time of unfulfilled expectations or sad memories of terrible past Christmases. People who live by themselves might feel extra lonely this time of year. For other people, Christmas is depressing because their family does not match the idyllic families that Christmas movies portray. And for many people who have lost loved ones, celebrating without their loved ones is very difficult. A couple of years ago, on the day before Christmas Eve, I learned that the baby I was carrying had died. So of course, now at Christmastime, I can’t help but think about that experience and think about that baby. But I think this is also what Christmas is all about.
For I think it is significant that it was at night that the angels appeared to the shepherds and the glory of the Lord shone around them. It was dark. It was probably cold. Yet that was when God had the angels appear. The angels didn’t appear on a bright, sunny day. Jesus wasn’t born in a comfortable inn surrounded by luxury. He was born outside, probably surrounded by animals, since they laid him in a manger. God chose to show up on a dark night. I think He still does that.
When things are dark, then God’s presence shows up. He is always with us, so it’s not that He wasn’t there before or He only arrives when things are bad, but that’s when we tend to notice Him. It’s like a flashlight in a bright room. We don’t notice the light is on. But in a dark room, a flashlight is a bright light. It is in the dark, in the difficult and painful moments of life, that the Lord’s presence is most noticeable. It’s as C. S. Lewis famously said, “But pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world” (C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain, HarperCollins 2001, pp. 89.).
For this is exactly why Jesus came to earth. This is why He was born. It is as the angel said, “I bring you good news of great joy which will be for all the people; 11 for today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.” Jesus came to earth to break into our darkness and give us Salvation which is how He helps us in our pain and gives us hope, peace and joy.
Last week, I quoted the verse from Isaiah 9:2 when he prophesied, “The people who walk in darkness will see a great light; those who live in a dark land, the light will shine on them.” Adding in verse 3, Isaiah says, “You will multiply the nation, You will increase their joy; they will rejoice in Your presence as with the joy of harvest, as people rejoice when they divide the spoils.”
Isaiah prophesied the Messiah would be a light in the darkness. Jesus would be the light that would shine. At His arrival, He would increase all people's joy. As we know, not all the people welcomed Jesus with joy. Herod wanted to kill him. The Jewish religious leaders didn’t think He was the Messiah. But to those who believed in Him, He brought them joy. We see from Scripture that a lot of the people who did welcome Him were not the people Isaiah might have expected.
The first people we read who welcomed Him are ordinary shepherds. The text says, “8 In the same region there were some shepherds staying out in the fields and keeping watch over their flock at night. 9 And an angel of the Lord suddenly stood near them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them; and they were terribly frightened. 10 And so the angel said to them, ‘Do not be afraid’.”
Now, while I know that the reason the angel says “do not be afraid” is because the angel suddenly appeared and, naturally, this would have terrified the shepherds, I also think we can take that directive ‘do not be afraid’ and apply it to our lives. Multiple times, all throughout the Bible, we are told not to be afraid and not to worry. We don’t have anything to fear, for quite literally we are surrounded by angels. When that first angel appeared, my guess is the multitude of the heavenly army of angels were already there. They were waiting to appear until the first angel made the announcement. If all the angels had appeared immediately, those shepherds probably would have passed out from fear.
If we could see into the spirit realm, I think we’d also pass out. I know different Christian authors have written books, fiction and non-fiction, trying to describe what they think this spirit realm looks like, but my guess is nobody has accurately depicted it. It’s a mystery to us and I think the Lord keeps it a mystery so we don’t get fixated on it. But what we know is angels are real and they surround us all the time. If the Lord plays a movie of our lives to us when we die or when He returns and we see how much He had the angels intervene in our lives, I think we would see that it is often. Psalm 91:11-12 says, “For He will give His angels orders concerning you, to protect you in all your ways. On their hands they will lift you up, so that you do not strike your foot against a stone.”
This angel, speaking to the Shepherds, continues, “11 for today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.” Did you catch the significance of that message? They are told in no uncertain terms that this baby is none other than the Savior, who is Christ the Lord. These ordinary shepherds are told the answer to the question that plaques so many people. As we follow the life of Jesus, we see there is so much mystery about who He is. Even Jesus asks people, “who do you say I am?” because He knows that is a question to so many people. Yet, right away, Luke records the angels declaring exactly Who Jesus is. It’s actually no mystery at all when we read Scripture, yet to so many people around Jesus, it confounded them.
These shepherds, they get told who this baby is and their response is belief. They left to find the baby, and they discovered the news was true. Then they testified and shared the message that the angels gave them and they left full of joy.
I think there is a sermon in there: the shepherds heard the Good News and believed; they shared the Good News with others; they were filled with joy. I think that is a solid example that all people should follow, don’t you?
To start with, in order to become a Christian, we must first hear the Good News. This Good News has not changed even though it has been over 2000 years ago since Christ was born. The Good News is still that there has been a Savior who has been born, and it is Christ the Lord. When we hear this Good News, we have a decision to make. Do we discount the message or do we act on it? Do we explore this message and learn more and come to faith? Or do we ignore the Gospel message?
These are the choices for unbelievers when they hear the Gospel, but I think the same choices apply to us believers as well. When we read God’s word or when we hear a sermon preached, do we respond to the message with faith, or do we ignore it? Jesus says in Matthew 7:24-27, “Therefore, everyone who hears these words of Mine, and acts on them, will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and yet it did not fall, for it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of Mine, and does not act on them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and it fell—and its collapse was great.”
And James reiterates what Jesus said in James 1:22-25 when he says, “But prove yourselves doers of the word, and not just hearers who deceive themselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror; for once he has looked at himself and gone away, he has immediately forgotten what kind of person he was. But one who has looked intently at the perfect law, the law of freedom, and has continued in it, not having become a forgetful hearer but an active doer, this person will be blessed in what he does.”
Today, when we hear God’s word, we too are faced with choices. Do we do what the word tells us to do? Do we explore it and find out more? Do we test out the word and find it to be true? Or do we discount it and ignore it, missing out on knowing more about the Lord?
The shepherds, they went and explored the message they heard. They acted on the word and they came to faith in the Savior. And because they did that, they were able to share that message with others.
That is a gift we are given to share, too, when we learn truth in scripture. We are not to stay silent about what we’ve learned, but we are to share it with others. We can testify to others about what we’ve learned. We can share our testimony of how we came to believe. We can also share our testimony of how we heard a particular message in Scripture or in a sermon and acted on what God’s word said and found out it was true. It’s not just unbelievers who need to hear God’s truth, it’s all people, Christians too. The shepherds shared what they were told to Mary. And the text tells us that “Mary treasured all these things, pondering them in her heart.”
That tells me we need to encourage one another. People need us to share what we have learned. For it encourages them and increases their faith, too.
It brings me back to the verse we’ve talked about recently, when Jesus said in Matthew 5:16, “Your light must shine before people in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.” We should not hide the light of the truth we have learned, but we should share it with others so they can see too.
After the shepherds told the message, then they left. It says, “And the shepherds went back, glorifying and praising God for all that they had heard and seen, just as had been told them.” They were glorifying and praising God. That sounds like joy to me.
It is as Isaiah said: when the Messiah arrived, God would “multiply the nation… increase their joy; they will rejoice in Your presence as with the joy of harvest, as people rejoice when they divide the spoils.”
Not only would more people come to faith in God, multiplying the nation, but He would increase their joy by being in their presence. This was certainly happening with the birth of Jesus. Right away, this prophecy was coming true. This Good News is news of great joy!
The devil, however, wants to keep people under a cover of darkness. He wants people to be ignorant and in the dark. Not just in the darkness of sin, but in the dark about God’s word. The devil doesn’t want people to know this good news we have. He doesn’t want people to see what God has shown us in His word. He wants to keep people lost and confused. Some people are so much in the dark that they can’t see clearly. They can’t see basic truths. Their minds are so mixed up that they are exactly as Isaiah describes them when he says in Isaiah 5:20, “Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness; who substitute bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!” These people are so deceived by the darkness that they call evil things good and good things evil.
Those of us who have seen the light and know the Good News of Christmas have the task of sharing this light with all the world. Christmastime is the perfect time to evangelize people, for so many people are hurting and though they might not know it, they are looking for what Christmas is actually about. They are looking for someone to rescue them out of the darkness and bring them into the light. That someone is Jesus.
If Christmas time feels depressing, I hope you don’t ‘hate it’ like that pastor I mentioned. Instead, I hope you remember what Christmas is all about. I hope you look for the appearing of Jesus. For His light is shining, offering you hope in the middle of the darkness. Jesus came into the world to bring us this Good News and it is Good News of great joy. A Savior, who is Christ the Lord, has been born. This Savior is the One who can heal our broken hearts. He is the one who can comfort us. He wants to fill us with His joy, which, like His peace, can transcend all circumstances. For the joy that comes from the Lord is not affected by our circumstances. Psalm 30:5 tells us that though weeping may endure in the night, joy will arrive in the morning. Just as the dawn of morning brings light to the world, so does the Lord bring light to our hearts. He can fill us with joy that comes from His presence with us, no matter what we are facing in our lives. For us believers, this joy stems from the truth that is unchanging. A Savior, who is Christ the Lord, has been given to us. He has come into the world to rescue us from our sin, and if we have faith in Him, He will bring us to Him where we can live with Him for all eternity. This is the Good News! This baby who was born, was born to bridge this gap between God. This is cause for joy!
Let us tell other people this Good News: “Do not be afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of great joy which will be for all the people; 11 for today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.”
Pray: Thank You Heavenly Father for sending us Your Son Jesus. Please shine the light of Jesus into all the corners of our world. We pray that this Christmas season, people would look to You for peace, hope and joy. For we know that those are things You freely give. We give to You any worry, sorrow, or pain we feel and we ask that You would draw near to us and lead us away from darkness and into Your shining light. Help us to remember what Christmas is all about. Help us to keep our mind on the Christ Child Who bore so much for us. In Him, whose name we pray, amen.
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